9/30/2012

But you can take away my game..I don't know why I do it; no matter how much I like the blogger, I shouldn't read posts of #savecoh. B/c then i'm tempted to read addition articles of more passionate people and then the real juicy parts are within comments of the trolls and fanboys. Then I start to have my own thoughts & opinions and they demand to be written out. Prove the last point of this entry by commenting about it.If you're not in the gaming industry (exec or accounting), in particular, the company (NCsoft)itself, your opinions and facts (of the viability of the game) have significantly less weight. No matter how 'true'.20k petitions via an online petition doesn't seem that impressive; it is incredibly easy to fabricate information and details. If I want to be unique, I have 5 family members, so there are 5 unique names, and I have 5 emails, so there we go with 5 different reasons. And if I was as passionate as the people out there, I wouldn't stop at 5 fake signatures, I'd spend my whole time doing it. I'm quite sure there is less than 1k real signatures on the list. Its the double-edged sword of the internet. Now if they had 1 million signatures, THAT would be impressive, but only for the fact that people spent so much time thinking up fake people's names, email addresses and sob story reasons.Heh; I like reading the reasons to why its important to people. Lets just stop right here. Lets be realistic.. why would a faceless corporation care about any of the reasons? The only thing that NCsoft would want to see is 20k signed petitions of REAL people saying "I'm willing to pay 20$ a month to keep it going, and here it is for 2 years in advance. Here is my legit bank account, please take my money." Why would they (NCsoft)waste money paying someone to go through such a petition otherwise? I see it sitting in a junk folder, or is insta-permanent-deleted. Maybe those execs use it for cheap laughs while on the sh!tter. Yes, bad PR for closing down Paragon.. but good PR for being the publisher Guild Wars 2.. hmmm.(lets be overly generous)While NCsoft loses the business of a few thousand gamers 'forever,' there are hundreds of thousands more that are untapped. How faithful are friends/strangers when the next big game is put infront of them? Answer: They're not; no matter what their friends say, or how loud the internet is from certain select groups, people will want to play the game even if the company had negative pr experience with a previous title. Will these ex-coh people stop gaming altogether and go back to reality? No; they'll just find some other game *coughCommunityisfluidandcanmovecough* to get attached to. I. Would. Absolutely. Love. To see what these people do that swear off gaming/games published by NCsoft. Answer: They'll end up play Guild Wars 2 but still complain.If I knew my favorite game's servers were going to close in X amt of months, I would be out there playing, not doing in-game protests. Unless thats fun for you, then all the power to you. But to me, that doesn't seem fun or efficient use of my free time; its like the people that jump onto mailboxes and does the /dance emote so people pay attention to them.Saw a twitter on how they're inviting the execs to play the game. I think they have better things to do, like roll around in money than play a game. Or maybe they're playing Guild Wars 2 or MoP like everyone else.

I was thinking about the argument of 'wait til your favorite game/passion is abruptly taken away from you, what then smarty pants?' The first real thing that came to mind was Firefly. Such a good show and sad that it didn't proceed past its first season. Think about it tho, some of those characters went onto very successful shows that would not have happened if it wasn't cancelled. Nathan Fillion is in Castle and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Gina Torres is in Suits (fantastic lawyer series). I recall seeing Adam Baldwin doing some other serious roles where he wasn't playing a low intelligence character. Why even Summer Glau was in The Big Bang Theory and the most recent episode of Alphas! Life goes on people.How much time is wasted on this *makes large arm gestures at all of this #savecoh* when something more constructive could have been done in real life?

9/26/2012

If you have only 1 key to a chest that will give you 2 EPIC rarity items leveled to your current level, would you use it right away, wait til you're weaponry feels underleveled or wait til max level?Oh Borderlands 2; I you're making me enjoy classes I thought i'd never like.. *hat tip*

9/24/2012

I dunno what it is about cosplay that I enjoy; maybe it is the fact that its really passionate people that put alot of effort into the design of their costume. These are the kinds of people that become fashion designers or costume directors for movies I imagine. I normally don't like Halloween b/c I don't have an elaborate costume that looks like the ones below; if I did, I would probably enjoy it alot more!These photos were from the recent Tokyo Game Show.

My best friend would probably love this jacket.. atleast for Halloween.. dunno about wearing it for real life (although thats what it was designed for).. if I was rich buddy, I'd buy it for you ;)

Its the Pre-release event this weekend for Magic: The Gathering, Return to Ravnica.. now I said I really wanted to go to it.. but i'm having second thoughts.. kinda fickle that way. I think it all becomes real when it gets closer to the date. I obviously would feel more comfortable going with a big group of friends. I guess I don't like competition very much and am kinda a sore loser when it comes to MTG.

9/20/2012

One of the four classes in Borderlands 2(B2), the Assassin. I'm surprised more people aren't playing him..

I did the unthinkable last night: I pug'ed with people in Borderlands 2(B2). I normally prefer to solo for the sole fact that I hate pugs. No voicechat was a double-edged sword: Pro - I don't have to listen to pushy or bossy people. Con - It wasn't organized very well; we got very distracted in town and never left when we got there. The experience last night wasn't too bad; the lag was intermittent but very playable, people jumped into your car and went to the same area to quest. It was bad, in that because you don't owe anyone anything, people snatched up loot quickly. I was surprised at the mix of classes I was playing with last night; I thought it would all be people playing the Assassin. Instead we had the Gunzerker, Siren, and Assassin coupled with my own Assassin. I'm hoping for very diverse parties.. but hope to play with friends in the future (midnight shift doesn't help this).

Some random thoughts/observations of Borderlands 2 so far:

no weapon proficiencies; so use whatever weapon you like

I don't know how non-preorder people go through the first part of the game with only a pistol (preorder people start with a SMG, rifle and sniper rifle)

Fire is very effective against Bollymogs (jumping Yeti's)

it seems like it is either harder to aim in B2, or the enemies avoid your fire much better

there is a purple currency in the game, Eridium bars that allows you to buy ammo/bank upgrades; they drop off enemies and are found in containers; don't panic: they are like money and are picked up by all party members

once you hit Sanctuary (2nd zone), there will be a greater assortment of weapons and not just pistols everywhere

I don't know how to kill guys with shields effectively

when you die, you get back some ammo if you ran out of it when you died

I really wish.. that B2 was like Diablo 3 in that everyone's loot was instanced. Because like I wrote above, people run to the chest, sometimes at the most inopportune times (say.. during battle!) and snatch all the gear. I guess thats where voicechat would help and some leadership. I think the best thing to do is if you do snatch something and use that item, then the item you replace should be dropped for your party. Hopefully they are able to use that and will return the favor in the future when they're faster looting than you are.

There are a TON of pistols in Borderlands 2.. 90% of the item drops are pistolsI haven't seen one sniper rifle or SMG drop yet.Players that didn't preorder the game won't start off with additional weapons.. and need to fight rather hard enemies and a boss with only a pistol... good luck with that... I can envision alot of rage quits from that. But I do believe you are refilled with ammo and grenades when you die tho.As far as I can see, there are no weapon proficiencies in
Borderlands 2.. but Badass levels (in-game achievements) grants tokens which allow you to customize and buff all your characters across the board.

9/18/2012

Haven't had a chance to play 'that' long, but so far so good; feels a bit harder than before and expects you know how to play fps games already.My solo character is the Commando (turret dropping guy), while my multiplayer guy will be the Assassin (bet everyone will be playing that guy).

Heh. "you moved 5 feet and opened a locker."

A cool example of making a choice in Borderlands 2.

If you hand in the quest item to Hammerlock, he gives you a sniper rifle. If you hand it in to Claptrap, he gives you a shotgun. Choose Wisely!

9/17/2012

I highly recommend Skyrim to any serious RPG enthusiast; huge wide open world, hundreds of npcs and quests, thousands of ways to customize your character. In depth character skill trees, player housing, a slew of potential followers. Dragons!

The pc version is unfortunately not very stable which prevented me from adding 200+ (not kidding) more hours than I wanted; my version kept crashing to desktop at a high frequency rate. If this is happening to you, i'd recommend the thing that 'seemed' to fix it *now I cross my fingers this doesn't jinx me*:Sound settings:Control Panel>Sound>Playback>Properties>Advanced: Set the default format to: 16bit 44hz

Beautiful Vistas!

Without much more ado, more Borderlands cosplay to get us more excited for tomorrow's release!

9/13/2012

Did you like Chandler played by Matthew Perry from Friends? Go watch his new series Go On. I didn't like Friends, but I really like his new tv show. He's more wacky and impulsive. Not a moment that it slows down. It has heartwarming parts just like Community.

Also, check out The New Normal. The groom from The Hangover (1) is in it and surprisingly makes a really good gay character. I hope both tv series go ones for quite a while.--------------------------------------

Loving this card.. picturing it to be a game-ENDER. Imagine drawing 4 Lava Axes or something that just pounds your opponent into oblivion.

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Lastly.. Borderlands 2 comes out in less than 1 week now. Check this link for an interactive skill tree. Time to study and see which class suits my style.

Its always interesting when you read up about players/guilds that boast of their dominance in PvP.. because their opponents are sleeping.I understand the desire to always win; but winning at the cost of not having a challenge? In the heydays of Warhammer Online, it was the greatest rush to be part of a warband fighting for an enemy keep being defended by a strong opponent. The long battles, the running back after dying from the camp to the battleground. How boring it was when we were in Tier 3 and the majority of players were in Tier 4; RvR was stuck with joining a warband, attacking and taking a keep (guarded only by NPCs) in 5 minutes, waiting for the experience reward and then jumping to the next zone. All the while, your enemies are in the zone you were just in, recapping the keep you took from them.I understand that strong servers will be matched up with equally strong servers in GW2. While I haven't played, or intend on getting GW2, I hope there is a system that can also tell whether one Server has just given up and thus reduces the rewards of the winning side. For 'winning' WvWvW because there are no opponents cheapens the experience.

9/11/2012

Lets all remember today to take a few seconds out of our day and remember those that were slaughtered by terrible misguided people.Hate is a powerful force; we should always try to remember it was a select few people belonging to an extremist faction that uses religion as an excuse (remember there were times in history in which other religions were used in the same fashion) to do such mindless killings. For there are many terrific and wholesome people that follow the same tenets that were killed that day too and would never commit such an atrocity.

9/10/2012

I think finally found the blog that may have started what is probably my most popular unpopular entry that i've ever written. After about the 30th comment, when I wrote the entry afterwards, is when I stopped reading the comments.. and had what I would call a "Classic Marco" moment.And only a few people could even fathom what that means.Although the most commented of my entries.. its surprisingly not my most viewed entry. While 700+ views is nothing to scoff at, I did a much simpler entry on looking at MTG art that garnered 1.7k views. Not too shabby.

9/07/2012

I was thinking of individually replying to each comment for my previous entry, but .. there are just so many! Joking aside, I thought I may get a bit snarky and get downright rude to the last few people (from naturally needing to defend myself over and over). I really wish I had monetized my site so i'd profit from writing such a provoking article!.. Not that I wrote it to annoy people or piss them off; more to just get a different opinion on it all. First off, thank you for reading hopefully most of it, and thanks for (as MMO Gamerchick viewed it as) not just blasting me with just venom and hate but keeping it civil, providing valid opinions and data/numbers (although links to validate it is better) on why you believe the game deserves to continue. People who know me would agree that I tend to think way outside the box and I do sometimes get a bit blunt/don't sugarcoat my opinions which would result in such backlash. Its interesting what you all wrote and i'm not at all offended if there was venom or the odd "you're doing it wrong."Some things:- i've never played CoH; although i've watched my brother play it(in the past year or so). Was not interested in the type of mmo genre, nor the graphics. With that all said, my opinion (on everything) would still be the same if it was a game that I did play, currently played and/or enjoyed.- I attempted to try to get actual facts and data on the game, failing to, I tried to minimize writing any real numbers other than the 'how old the game is' part. Its more of a poke in jest rather than trying to stick you with a branding iron.- I've obviously played many mmo's and understand how a great community makes and can break a game and that it provides an intangible value that companies may not scrutinize when making business decisions. I do believe a community can still move tho, and there are so many ways these days (FB, Twitter, forums, blogs, other games etc) to keep it going and find another way to connect.- whether the data provided in comments (about revenue) is accurate or not, it is curious that a company would close the servers if it was THAT profitable. Its like having a cash cow; why get rid of it? Maybe 10 million minus all the expenses (to paraphrase from Simpsons: Oh won't somebody think of the expenses!) doesn't make it viable. Maybe the same amount of resources can be put elsewhere to create more value.- I find boasting of a strong 'community' is rather subjective, and saying its different (than other mmo communities) is saying that its better than any other games' community. I raise my eyebrow at that constant argument. I'm quite sure people playing in other 'communties' wouldn't agree. But lets agree to disagree.. or not ;)- My use of words probably wasn't best (in the previous entry)but it was due to what I read from the article; kind of fighting blind loyalty with my own brutal blunt opinion. I do know no one likes being told that what they are passionate about doesn't matter. I felt the entry (by Chris) implied that anyone that didn't agree with their point of view, was stupid and there is no other opinion that is right than theirs. I'd imagine there are more people that root for your cause than my realistic (aka: cynical lol) opinion, so I wouldn't feel the need to get in such a frenzy. But that is your right to do so. (hence 35+ comments and rising!..?)I'm not here to continually argue with fans of CoH and refute your point of view and declare mine the best. That would be trolling and boring. Its not giving up to a large amount of responses (i'm actually surprised you found it or follow me), but just not interested in writing more about it. Despite my opinion that I think it is a lost cause, I (surprised?) do hope your passion is saved from 'extinction' and worst case scenario, some company makes a super-hero mmo that suits you & your community's needs. I purposely didn't write more than what I already wrote in my original entry, thinking that it would bore people, but as the case may be, it probably would have helped to be more clear!Once again, thanks to all the comments, you've made me write way more than I wanted to.. thanksssKeep fighting for what you believe in.

9/06/2012

As you can see from many months of entries, I haven't really written anything of substance or thought; mostly pictures, photographs and card previews. I find it easier to write (something gaming related) something of substance when you've got a game to play. I unfortunately won't be playing Guild Wars 2 anytime in the near future and thus must wait to bore my readers about the wonders of Borderlands 2 with Return to Ravnica card reveals instead.I saw an article that C.Smith wrote at Levelcapped, and at first I was not going to bother (read or have a blog response), but then after reading it a few times, I think it deserves a closer look.

I'm normally not the one to be argumentative, but I don't agree with alot with what was written there.Companies have no obligation to tell their customers why they are shuttering the servers to an old game. I don't believe they even need to do it with a new game. Say ArenaNet tomorrow closes all their servers to Guild Wars2, "thanks for the money, later!" I believe they can do that. There would be horrific backlash worldwide and no one would ever buy an ArenaNet product again, not to mention there would be more than one legal case put against them.The obligation they have is to give notice that they are closing the servers. Not on why. Does that mean we should just give up, not question The Man and walk away? No. You have the right to question it, write those letters, and make your voice heard. One interesting tidbit; CoH is one of NCSoft's longest running titles besides the Lineage series. Apparently its older than the original Guild Wars and the obvious Aion. Does it not make sense to close down servers to an unpopular game so that more resources can be allocated to a newer game or to a game in development?I wouldn't say that accepting the closure of CoH is being one step above a vegetative state, but more about being realistic, being mature and understanding how the real world works. The bottom line is: does CoH matter? And the answer is: It really doesn't. Just because you don't fight for one instance of a thing, doesn't mean you'll do that for everything. Thats why I don't fight for CoH; b/c it doesn't matter.I'd argue that CoH IS like a can of beans sitting on a supermarket shelf. It is a product that a company produces and chooses what to do with it however they see fit. What is it other than a online game that allows different levels of interaction with other people. Is it not like an out of date cell phone, countless years old that a company doesn't want to manufacture anymore b/c they are developing even better phones, far superior in every way, with nearly every feature the old phone had?People waste so much effort in saving things that are a lost cause and won't make a difference. Saving CoH is one of those cases. The decision has been made, and unless NCSoft is full of idiots, they did their research, they have the data, the graphs, the experts to tell them whether this is the right thing to do or not. And its the case that its not worth wasting resources on keeping. A company has many but 2 basic goals: 1) to make money, 2) to have loyal customers. It doesn't matter how loyal they are if you're not making money, b/c if you're not making money, you can't pay the people to support the game. If you can't pay people, unless they're independently wealthy, they won't stay and work for free. If you don't have workers, then you don't have much of a company, do you? (Check this article on some tidbits on their revenue stream)And what happens then? People will argue that NCSoft makes revenue elsewhere, so if CoH bleeds them, its ok. Wrong. Where do you go from it being ok that it is a drain on their company, to it not being ok. Be realistic b/c in this case: everyone loses.I was writing earilier how CoH doesn't matter. How about what happened with the Islamic Spring in Egypt or currently happening in Syria? Things like.. your government is suppressing you rights and killing you for it. What we're talking about is a game that is being closed that we're spending so much effort on. Gaming has their merits but it isn't everything in life nor should it be given precidence over other parts of life.If CoH was worth maintaining, then there obviously would be more people playing it and paying for it, but it obviously is not (according to the graph, with less revenues, means less players, meaning you would need to charge them 25$ to have the same amount of revenue, if thats even sustainable). How often do we hear news about CoH? Never, b/c its not a popular game anymore. People are playing GW2, The Secret World, waiting for the next WoW expansion etc.While both developers and players put countless hours into the game and form emotional attachment to it, that doesn't mean the company loses the right to choose whether they keep it going or close it down. It is childish to think that companies don't know that anyone that has a hand in the product is passionate and attached to it. A smart company will find a new product, a better product that these passionate fans can appreciate.So while one game dies, many more will be born. Its just the cycle of games; especially mmo games. While there are people that still play the original Call of Duty game, there are possibly 10, 20, 100, 200 times more players playing and savoring the newest iteration. CoH is a super hero mmo game, there has been other super hero mmo's developed (Champions Online & DC Universe)and many more to come in the future. By forcing it to exist, you keep the market saturated and reduce the need to have a newer, better one for today's modern mmo player. #SaveCoH is actually doing a disservice to mmo players, especially those that enjoy super hero themed ones. Let it die with grace so the sidekick can step up to the plate or a new super hero appear from the shadows.

Can you say "hurray for short weeks"? I love 4-day weeks; its already Thursday, can you believe it? If you feel like you're not accomplishing much, try writing down the tasks you want to accomplish the night before. Having a list of *ahem* 'quests' will result in you accomplishing them, rather than trying to remember while, say, trying to fend off the urge to play Guild Wars 2.

What did I learn (photography-wise) this year at Toronto's Fan Expo?Beautiful gamer women are there. Tear yourself away from the pc and get a girlfriend like this! Wait, that doesn't have anything to do with photography... Ok. Its not ideal photography conditions in a convention centre, so you must take care and preferably test shots before you waste shots on say.. beautiful women!

In these two photos, the background was heavily darkened from the flash I had attached to my camera. While it gave me sharp pictures, the black background wasn't necessarily desired; I like the brighter background. Its not that the background was dark, but the flash makes everything close very bright and the background very dark.

I decided that I didn't like the super dark background (but liking it more now that I look at it more) and had to take photos without a flash. That meant using my 50mm lens. The only way I could have an acceptable shutter speed of 1/80, I reduced my f stop to 1.8 . Its actually what you should do because it will blur the background the most, except you have to be very careful to ensure the focus point is on the subject's eyes, otherwise it will look weird looking at your photo, thus ruining it.

I've found that when taking portraits, to be extra careful when framing the subject. Yes, you have to be quick and not make the model wait too long, but framing is still important. I found alot of shots, there was alot of empty space at the top of the photo, requiring me to crop it out. I'm the type that prefers to do as little editting as needed and to make the photo as best as possible the first time.

In a perfect world, we'd like to get almost the whole person in costume, but it might result in alot of ugly background.. not that i'm saying my friend who jumped into the background is ugly (its actually funny), but there are other distracting things (faces and movement)in a busy anime convention which may ruin a photo.

9/02/2012

Happy Sunday everyone!While everyone is enjoying fast internet speeds and thus Guild Wars 2, I have to settle with waiting for Borderlands 2 and any tidbits of information on the new block of Return to Ravnica. They have a big section on MTG at PAX which has them showing alot of cards which will make you really excited.. in the pants.

Wizards released an article last night on all the mechanics you will encounter in the first set. I've gone ahead and posted them and have a little commentary on them all:This is a reprint from previous editions.. not too shabby, not fantastic. But the mana cost is what makes it good. Normally, say paying just one color mana, it would take 4 mana for the same amount of life gain.

Notice how all these cards have the guild symbol as a watermark in the flavor text area; this one being Izzet's. So 1R for 4 damage, not bad in early game.. but in late game, Overload it, and that is pretty sick (doing 4 damage to each creature; good by shrouded and hexproof). I love cards that have purpose in both early and late game.

An example of hybrid mana; love hybrid mana, makes you more flexible, especially if you don't draw the right lands at the opening hand. I love the name of this creature, the look, and the flavor text. It sort of reminds me of the Hellspark Elemental, that doesn't get sacrificed at the end of turn.

Detain is the mechanic for Azorius.. and it does seem to fit their kind of cards. Basicly, a 1-turn Arrest. Remember, its til YOUR next turn, not til the end of your turn. If you can somehow combine Blink and Haste with your creatures.. it'll be a very annoying game for your opponent. This seems like more of an early game benefit, and when your opponent cannot pull out many creatures at once.

At first I thought the Selesnya mechanic, Populate was kinda crappy, but the article goes more into depth about it. Basically, yes, you can make a token of the 1/1 white Bird from Eyes in the Skies... OR you have a huge creature already on the field, right? Make a copy of THAT creature instead! SICK. So even if you're copying the 1/1 white Bird, its on par for mana (2 1/1s which both fly)... but once you copy something stronger.. its a great deal.. and its only common! This seems to be good at both mid and late game to fill up your field.

I'm on the fence for the Golgari Scavenge mechanic.. sure it gives your creatures in the graveyard more use, but the standard creature seems to cost more mana than the same kind with scavenge.. I'm thinking this is more a late game kind of mechanic. With creatures such as Splinterfright and Boneyard Wurm, which you would think be a good addition to a Golgari deck, you actually don't want to remove those creatures as much.

So Rakdos.. I do not like your Unleash mechanic.. unless there will be Unleash 1/2/3/4/* like the Devour mechanic.. I don't like just getting one measly +1/+1 counter on my creature and then remove the ability to block. Do not want.

Couldn't format this card correctly; its supposed to be below. Anyways... remember this is a common card so it can't be that fantastic.. What is a Gate anyways? See below.

I looooove two mana-producing lands. The only draw back is that it comes in tapped.. BUT is COMMON and doesn't have an additional draw back like this card.